Saints At Sunderland The Preview Wednesday, 6th Nov 2013 08:00 Saints travel to the Stadium Of Light in the rearranged Capital One Cup tie knowing a win will give them a home draw with Chelsea and sight of the semi finals. Although beating the Mackem's would put Saints a sniff of cup glory for the first time since the heady days of 2003, it seems likely that it will be a much changed side that Mauricio Pochettino will put out in the North East, than the one that faced Stoke City at the weekend. Now personally, and I know I say this every round of either the League or FA Cup, but I truly think that we and for that matter every other club that makes wholesale changes is missing a real trick here, if we want to be considered a big club, then we need to act like one and I don't mean by emulating the fact that the top four clubs rarely put out a decent side till the semi finals, I mean by doing what football clubs used to do, try and win trophies, after all that's why we support our team, personally I don't see sixth in the Premier League as any better than quarter finalists in the FA Cup, your name isn't on the trophy and few will remember by the following season. I do see why Saints do need to make changes though, if you look at teams in recent weeks its usually the same 13 who are in contention for the starting 11 week in week out, if everyone is fit then the only changes are usually the wide left & formation changes ie Rodriguez or Osvaldo/Lambert, or a choice between JWP/Davis, although its good to see we have a settled side on the down side , very few of the other half of the squad are actually getting game time and therefore I can see why the manager needs to use the squad in this cup. However that doesn't mean that he needs to make wholesale changes, in my opinion, playing a completely different team helps those players coming in no more than a reserve team fixture would, they are not getting game time alongside players that they would do in the Premier League, it would be far better to keep the spine of the team intact and then place a few of the squad players around them. I doubt that this will happen though, judging by the number of interviews Kelvin Davis is giving this week, we might as well let Sunderland know he will be playing by taking out a billboard outside the Stadium Of Light, elsewhere its likely to be all change as well, barring injuries I cant see any of Saturday's starters in this line up. Some would say that we have a strong back up team, I have seen written that the 11 we put out tonight would be strong enough to challenge for promotion in the Championship, that as well may be, but the manager seems to have little faith in most of them judging by the game time they have all individually had and although I can understand that with our penchant for games that are very close away from home, at St Mary's we have won three on the trot 2-0 with scope for more use of substitutes, however we have not done so, the comprehensive victory against Fulham saw only two subs used, the first Guly got 13 mins on the pitch and the second of them Jack Cork was in the 90th minute as the board went up for 2 minutes of injury time, cant see what the actual point was of this. In this game we had the perfect opportunity to give game time to the likes of Ramirez, Lee, Chambers or even Hooiveld, the last two could be crucial if certain players picked up injuries. That is why Im a little sceptical when teams are changed wholesale for the Capital One Cup, surely better to use the squad more in League games when the game is won, that is far more conducive to getting players confidence up and promoting team spirit, to the outsider we have two squads, the first consisting of around 15 players, the second 10n or so who don't seem to be able to get on the pitch in the league for anything more than a token couple of minutes here and there. Saints have a real opportunity up in the North East tonight, they face a Sunderland side not only lacking in confidence and in disarray, but in transition as well, we have the chance to go and do the job properly and get ourselves into the last 8 of the competition only 3 games from Wembley, its a big gamble with our season if we put out a sub standard side and get beat, going into this game in sixth there is a lot of talk about European qualification through the league, we have a far better chance through this route and many a season goes pear shaped after a cup defeat, lets keep winning and keep the confidence up. Having said all this I think we have the backbone to win the game given Sunderland's predicament, hopefully there will be enough players out there who are trying to push their claim and we will have just that little too much for Sunderland, however we should not underestimate them and it would be good to see the insurance of a few first teamers on the bench tonight rather than the youngsters who have filled this role in the previous rounds, Im all for youth breaking through, but as Arsenal have shown in recent years, sometimes giving youth its chance in competitions like this means you remain trophyless. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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